To Be Continued
by yatagarasuoh
Summary: Because fire is unparticular and unpredictable. It welcomes a lost one into a warm embrace, but it burns another. It spares the bird, but it kills its King. Fire rages and consumes everything, but always, in the end, it becomes a breath of ember and a touch of charcoal. This, too, is a story with words eaten by flame and passions never quoted.


**To Be Continued**

* * *

_gauzy smoke burns tears through unseeing eyes;_

There is nothing worse, Misaki thinks, than realizing that one has no real place, no home to return to. A lot of the times when he's just wandering around, fists clenched in his pockets, he wonders what it would feel like to belong, have a place that he can call his home. The city is big; he knows that there has to be somewhere that he might fit in. He doesn't want to think that there is no space left for him in this unforgiving world. The thought sort of hurts, rings like a broken bell through the emptiness devouring his chest, and leaves deep gouges of something not quite hurt, but not something nice either.

"You hungry?" asks Saruhiko, holding out a half-eaten burger. Misaki pauses in his perusal of skyscape painted over glass windows hundreds of stories above his head, and smiles gently at the crumbs stuck to the corner of thin lips. He reaches and wipes away the bread, snatching the proffered food when eyes narrow at him from behind wire frames. Saruhiko almost seems to blend in, his dark hair and sharp features much like the modern city with its edge and technology.

"You eat too much," accuses Saruhiko as he observes Misaki wolf down the rest of the burger as well as the ketchup-lathered fries from the fast food meal they had been sharing. When Misaki leans forward to grab the drink, Saruhiko takes it quickly, jabbing the single straw into his mouth before anything can be done. His glare is sharp, but there is no real hostility in it. There is almost fondness in his gaze.

"Your fault for offering me the food," retorts Misaki, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You should know by now that I'll take all of your portion if I can, and yet you still let me. Stupid monkey."

The other times when he isn't thinking about being lonely, Misaki throws his weight over Saruhiko's shoulders and takes his mind off with prodding teases, the sort of happiness that comes from camaraderie. It's these instance where he's perfectly fine without having a solid root, doesn't mind floating around if it means that he can have this. He briefly imagines going a day without Saruhiko, shivers promptly, and tries to shake the image from his mind. It's a terrifying thought, really, being left behind or moving too far apart. It's a day that he doesn't want to exist, a day that will hopefully never come to rue their friendship. Misaki finds it somewhat frightening how easily he can conjure up the scenario in his mind, where Saruhiko's dark eyes are distant and cold.

When they join HOMRA together, get identical marks in identical places, that possibility is cast far away into the forgotten corners of his mind. It makes his chest swell with pride—love, maybe—when warm arms pull him into an embrace he hasn't felt in a long time. Misaki looks back at Saruhiko and extends an arm, a hand, fingers buzzing with newfound energy. He doesn't think anything of the slight hesitance, the numbness in an azure stare that is too familiar. He doesn't realize that sometimes, fire welcomes, and sometimes, fire burns.

* * *

_those raw wounds: let them bleed—let them hurt;_

The searing mark near his collarbone feels a lot like the dull warmth of sunset, crushing its reflections into the pretty kaleidoscope of Shizume City. There had initially been a sharp sting whenever he breathed, but now it is a stretch of duty of a sense of belonging branded onto his skin. Phantom fingers seem to brush over the marked flesh, almost as if they are reminders of a burning hot touch that knows only the gentleness of a consuming flame. It nearly comforts him; but not quite.

Recent betrayal sits heavy in his chest. It's hard to breathe, much less talk to others and pretend that he is alright. At times he feels angry, so angry that the fire at his fingertips cannot be quelled and the scrape of wheel over limestone and asphalt does little to calm him. It's blinding, the way the red dances and the lingering remnants cast bitterness into his eyes.

_There goes your pride, Misaki_.

During those brief, silent moments when the hot ire in his veins runs cold and he is left shivering from the emptiness, pain creeps in, filling the hollowness with a sort of gnawing acid, but not quite. It's difficult to hide from the others at first—extremely so when they're all attuned with each other and his tendency to let his mouth run loose is a subconscious habit—but with practice and time, the hurt relinquishes to his will more easily. There is one person he cannot escape, however. With hair the color of deep flame and soot trailing at tapered fingertips, their leader, their King, knows even the darkest corners of their hearts. He knows that Misaki cannot push the traitor away—not completely.

"If there's anything you want to tell me," says Mikoto, embers at the corners of his stiff lips, "I'll listen." The flames around him drift about in slow, lazy licks. It's an image of regal glory, smoke curling around Mikoto's feet, illusions of fire cascading from his palms. He doesn't have to say much to make the tightness in Misaki's throat release its chokehold.

"I know," breathes Misaki, softly. With those words, slowly, he begins to let go, too. It isn't entirely possible to release the ashes that he has clenched within his palms, but at least some of it filters past his fingers into the cold, blue wind. Letting something go, Misaki learns, is a lot like extinguishing dying flames. There is unbearable heat, a deafening hiss; then.

Silence.

* * *

_wearing broken hearts like smiling faces;_

They all manage to fit in with each other, one way or another. One man's flaw becomes someone's strength. Vices become victory. And a group of lost people, without place, without purpose, find something in the fire that they all share. A bunch of misfits, under the guidance of Suoh Mikoto, have found a place they belong to, a purpose of serving, of protecting. People sneer at their outward appearances and only cower in respect—more on the edge of fear—when their hands are pulsing with flames and their eyes flash an angry red.

"Why don't you tell him?" asks Misaki, observing the way Totsuka stares at Mikoto. He had never realized what exactly was in Totsuka's expression whenever he looked at the Red Kind, and doesn't figure out until Kusanagi accidentally slips a few words while cleaning the bar. But he now knows that there's more than simple adoration in that carefree, something a bit thicker and heavier than friendship.

Totsuka looks at him askance, a small and knowing smile tugging at his lips. "Mikoto has someone else already in his mind," is the answer, which only serves to raise more questions in Misaki's mind. He doesn't like having to think so much. When he does, his thoughts make turns for darker ends, digging up relics of the past through flashes of memory. It's much better to let his mind go blank when he's out there with fire in his hands and rage down his throat.

But there is another side to the flames. Misaki looks around the occupied bar, takes note of the many different faces, personalities, all united with a bond that simple words cannot explain. It can only be explained with the tumultuous heat that envelopes their bodies, materializes into something that they can wield_. To protect_.

Something swells in his chest, something familiar and warm. He'd never known such a feeling until he'd been accepted in HOMRA, and now it's something that he can't even dream of giving up. Misaki always wonders if Saruhiko had a reason for leaving, or whether his sole drive was his quest to gain more power. It blinds him with madness at first, but then a hush of sadness clings to his heart and doesn't let go, like some damn primate with its unrelenting grip. He doesn't like the feeling. Not at all. He's never been one to forgive, and the bitterness lives on inside of him like a festering wound; rotting.

"Are you thinking of something?" asks Totsuka, elbow propped on the bar. The older man has always been the atmosphere of this place. He knows how to bring smiles to their faces; his presence is something that reins in their wild and rash behavior. It's interesting, really, how everyone seems to enjoy being around Totsuka so much, like moths—creatures of the night, despised—veering towards light. It's an accurate representation with how bright Totsuka is. His fire never burns; it's too kind, too gentle; all it does is make one feel warm and needed. "You look really serious, Yata-kun. Your face doesn't look as funny as it usually does. What are you thinking about?"

Misaki hesitates, but Totsuka has always been good at coaxing out the truth, unbidden and pure. He feels the temptation to let the words fall from his mouth, let the uncertainty in his shoulders drop and the desires that he wants to go away. But he's had practice, after all, acting as if everything was alright and that the agony twisting in his chest is nothing but a mere memory. Instead, he shakes his head and grins a little, adjusting the black beanie over the mess of his red hair.

"Just thinking about what I should make for dinner." The lie isn't the most eloquent, nor is it the most believable. Totsuka takes it anyways and laughs. In the background Misaki can hear Kamamoto yelling at Eric to give his snacks back, the drone of Kusanagi's flirty voice with women customers, Anna whispering about strange things as she clings to Mikoto's arm.

"As long as it's not burnt too much," intones Totsuka, serious. "I will eat just about anything."

Misaki nearly burns the fried rice that he makes, and he wonders how long everything will last, how long this will last. He's not the brightest, but he's not dumb. He's long known that fire doesn't burn for forever, and if it does, there is sacrifice and pain in keeping it alive.

It's something he doesn't want to think about. Instead he plasters his usual cocky smirk to his face and smashes Kamamoto's gluttonous face into the nearest solid surface. He doesn't notice that there's more force behind his push, more snap in his voice, but no one mentions it. They accept him for who he is—

(and maybe that's what makes everything so unbearable.)

* * *

_a constant stream of words (letters stringed together with blurred syllables): crimson lines and curves that fall to the ground in a pile of unspoken desire, wishes, dreams;_

"Yata-chan." Kusanagi stops polishing the wine glasses, glancing over at Misaki. It's late at night, teetering on the edge between past midnight and the early hours of dark morning. Mikoto has gone up to tuck little Anna into bed after she had come down thirsty, and it is only Kusanagi and Misaki left in the bar. The moonlight is dull in comparison with the garish glow of city lights, and neon colors create soft-edged kaleidoscopes in glass.

Misaki, lounging on the couch with his beanie pulled over his eyes, grunts. "What."

"How long are you going to pine?"

Anger. Embarrassment. "I'm not pining, dammit!"

He's flustered, and it infuriates Misaki to know that he can still get riled up over something like this so easily. It's something he's still trying to get out—falling for someone—and he's standing back, gauging the distance between and over definitive lines. He doesn't know since when it's started, and it still makes him feel guilty because Totsuka is always smiling and holding back, smiling like nothing bad is ever going to happen.

Kusanagi eyes Misaki when Mikoto enters the bar again, a cigarette already halfway in between his lips. If the King notices anything wrong, he doesn't mention it, and he sits with a heavy sigh on the couch across from Misaki.

"Get me something heavy. Strong," says Mikoto to the barista around a mouthful of nicotine and sweet, rotten smoke. "I don't care if my head hurts in the morning."

The subject is dropped, but Misaki can still feel the second-in-command's eyes bore holes into him as he makes his leave.

"Goodnight, Yata."

Mikoto probably doesn't mean anything by it, and yet Misaki's cheeks flare with an uncomfortable heat as he stumbles down the streets, throwing down his skateboard onto the asphalt. He thinks of Totsuka's strained smile that doesn't meet his eyes, and swallows the lump in his throat. Want is a scary thing, and he can feel the edges of danger creeping in. Totsuka is a better person than he is, he muses, gentle and passionate just as Misaki is uncontrollable and wild. He figures that their leader needs someone like that to keep from breaking down, because wielding the Sword of Damocles is taxing, grates on the bones and stretches tendons like no other.

Streaking down the streets as a red blur, Misaki clenches his fists tightly and revels in the sting, the bite of uncut nails in his palm. There is heat in the flames on his skin, and as long as he has those, he supposes, he doesn't need anything else. This is something that's enough, with fire in his eyes and down his throat, Misaki can imagine it to be the glimmer of shadowed eyes if he loses himself.

Night is welcome company. The black swallows him up, and he doesn't need to think.

* * *

_the glitter of eye is a coveted jewel, and the black—thick inescapable death—embraces, kisses;_

Totsuka's eyes looks nothing like they were when he was alive. Now they look like pieces of plastic, the ones stuck onto motionless dolls to give them an artificial spark of life. Tears don't stop falling, not even after Kusanagi has phoned Mikoto to let him know of the transpired events. The mark settled on his collarbone feels like it's on fire, and Misaki can't tell whether the searing, seething rage is his or their King's; there is a stinging, cleaving sensation of something being torn away from them that hurts like hell. It's the loss of someone that they all loved more than a brother that has them falling apart at the seams, rising to anger through ashes and smoke. If they let red cloud their vision and vengeance paint their lips, at least the heart wrenching pain will go away.

When Misaki returns to his modest room, the only light coming from the uncovered window, he stares for a long time down at his hands. The smudges of red-turned-burgundy spell out death. And though he shoves them under cold water, scrubs at them until _he_ bleeds, the filthy marks remain like eternal scars. They seem to leer at him with insatiable grins, a glint of deep blue here, a flash of twisted metal there. Like this, Anna finds him, still clawing at himself, chanting _I'm sorry_ like a prayer that has lost its destination.

"Stop," pleads Anna, her voice deadened in the heavy atmosphere. Her eyes are fixated on the red—_redredred—_that spills unbidden from raw, guilty flesh. "You're hurting yourself. Please stop."

Deaf to the world around him, Misaki does not respond. He continues scratching at his aching skin with his blunt nails, anything to stop his chest from hurting so goddamn much. His eyes are so swollen and blurry with tears that he can't even see straight anymore. The cold water has long since made his entire arms numb, and he contemplates whether he should take a cold shower, too, let the cold water numb his body until he can't feel a thing. It's a tempting thought, and Misaki nearly carries out with it until he hears a familiar, deep exhale from behind him.

"Yata," sighs Mikoto, amber eyes filled with the same sorrow that plagues Misaki's heart. "Don't cry. It's not going to bring him back. It isn't you fault. Don't cry, alright?"

Misaki allows himself to be tugged into a hard embrace; it enflames him more instead of soothing him, but maybe that's what the Red King had mean to do.

"Everyone I care for always leaves. Are you going to leave too?"

"Yata."

Sniffling, Misaki wipes his leaking nose on the back of his arm. He's almost shocked at how little perception there is in his nerves. "He loved you, Mikoto-san. You knew all along, didn't you? You knew that he was holding back, didn't you?"

The Red King says nothing, but his silence is answer enough.

Later, after he's been lying awake in his bed restless for hours, Misaki finally lets his eyelids fall shut. Sunrise paints his vision crimson, and he presses his face into the bed sheets to let the cool darkness claim his vision once again. Only it doesn't bring peace and quiet, not after everything that's happened and the screams of a gunshot still echoing in his mind. The sick warmth of blood over his skin refuses to leave, and corrodes his sanity like relentless acid.

He sees their King, his King, surrounded by devouring flames. Mikoto is an image of burning majesty even as charcoal defines his skin and the red eats away at him, slowly but surely. It's a dream where Mikoto is standing alone, breathing heavily as he stares up at the damaged sword above him. The city around him is in ruins, twisted clumps of metal and mountains of crumbling rubble. And yet the King looks… happy. His expression isn't the usual one of disinterest or mild displeasure; the corner of his lips stretch into the barest hint of a smile. At once Misaki imagines what Mikoto would look like if he was truly smiling, and he is breathless.

It seems that Mikoto is all too willing to let death take him away. He takes destruction in with his arms flung wide open, head upturned to the sky and lips parted as if to kiss the furious stars of his cathartic flames. The fiery red of his hair melts into the blaze of the dropping blade, falling so heavily that the earth shakes and everything twists into chaos. Misaki screams. The King is dead, but all he can do is scream.

"You'll be alright," says Kusanagi, having come over on behalf of their King's request. He had woken Misaki up when he heard the desperate, bloodcurdling scream, and now watches the young vanguard heave and tremble for breath, hands buried in the bird nest mess of his hair. "You're one of his, so you'll be fine. He might destroy everything else, but we are his to protect."

After Kusanagi leaves to tend to his bar in the afternoon (as the sun stretches itself over the dimming horizon), Misaki curls up within the threadbare safety of his bed and whispers hoarsely, brokenly: "Liar."

* * *

_ashes consume the past, grey extending questing hands even to the coldest, most lonely of all hearts;_

"You miss him." Anna's words are soft, but absolute, and Misaki casts her a wayward glance. He wants to say that he is still as energetic and angry as ever, but it's almost as if the strength has left him. It takes colossal effort to go around with that rugged mask on all the time; he's practiced donning it for years, but the wooden edges where things don't quite it are chafed and sore. Weariness has settled deep into his bones, and just as desperately that he wants to avenge Totsuka's death, he wants to lie down and close his eyes. Misaki wants to rest, dream without having nightmares of Mikoto dying in a ragged burst of edgy flames. Yet everywhere he goes and closes his eyes, only the horror of a striking loneliness greets him.

"What of it?" he sneers and gestures to the other members of HOMRA scattered about the bar. "So do they, so do you. We all miss our King. Especially after he turned himself in to the Blues just like that. We're just waiting for him now, aren't we? There's nothing to worry about."

"Liar," murmurs Anna, still in her quiet, hushed voice. The crimson marbles on the table spin around in dizzying circles, searching for the perpetrator of this madness. Totsuka Tatara's death is still fresh in their minds, but their wounds have already closed over with callous determination. "You miss him a lot. Your longing is different from mine and Kusanagi-san's. It's thicker, more passionate." She looks up at Misaki with curious eyes. "It's almost like how Totsuka-san looked at Mikoto, only yours is a darker red. It's pretty."

Something inside Misaki roars, like fire is trying to claw its way out his throat. He clears his throat, looks away. "Don't be stupid."

And the fire rages, and burns—and burns.

* * *

_the rains shift into biting snow, and __it all slows to a stop, now__—the white monochrome is dyed a heartbroken red__;_

Mikoto doesn't go with the fire, not as had been expected of the Red King, the very embodiment of crimson devastation itself. Misaki had waited for it, the telltale ruthless of chaos, the mighty heat wave of a nova so strong it would disintegrate bones. He keeps waiting, in fact, even long after the Red has peeled off from skin to form bloody constellations in the sky. He keeps thinking that maybe his dreams will become a reality, and he, too, will become a part of the apocalypse manifested from Mikoto's death.

Instead, there is a whisper of wind, the shrillness of Anna's scream, and the numb realization that everything is over. Everything is gone. The silence is almost too loud for Misaki, and he is overwhelmed with the reality that the flames are no longer there, nothing more than crackling remnants of a former king in their memories. And he knows that eventually they will forget, and that there is nothing they can do about it. Already he can see the hesitant shifts in lesser men's expressions, the want to flee and never look back.

He wonders if one day he will be the same. Unlike Kusanagi, he doesn't have a place that needs him anymore, something to root him down solidly and never let him go. Misaki looks up at the sky and doesn't see the white, but the red mark of their king, and a king no more, (a man that Misaki never told he loved, but probably knew anyways).

A gentle, warm hand seems to touch Misaki's cheek. He turns to look at who it is, surprised to see Anna reaching up to him, eyes watery but not despairing. It reminds him a lot of how Mikoto's palm had felt against his skin, warm and comforting despite the supernatural turmoil tempered under human skin. Mikoto did not know how to be gentle, not with the power at his fingertips, but he had been warm. He had been someone who gave Misaki a home.

"Mikoto loved you, too," says Anna, steely resolve in her gaze. "I could feel it. See it. He thought it would hurt you if you knew."

"_Don't cry, alright?"_

Misaki laughs bitterly through his acrid tears, and his chest aches and throbs and sears with unbearable heat. But the burn is a memory of his King, and it burns and burns with unspoken passions. The exhaustion from the earlier fights finally catches up to him, and Misaki falls—

(In reality, he collapses into the snow; in his dreams, though, Mikoto catches him with arms no longer forced to accommodate a power too large for man. He is warm.)

* * *

_the end._

* * *

.

.

* * *

.


End file.
